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nongovernmental organizations to begin preliminary negotia-

tions on the text of the statute.  The Preparatory Committee

held six sessions over more than two years and completed an

amended draft statute on April 3, 1998.  The Rome conference

that concludes on July 17 is intended to work out the draft

statute's many remaining unresolved issues.

The Nuremberg Model Is Not Applicable

It is common for proponents of the ICC to argue that it

will function like a permanent Nuremberg tribunal.2  In

fact, the city of Nuremberg, where 21 Nazis stood trial for

their role in the deaths of more than 20 million people, is

mounting a serious campaign to be the permanent home of the

proposed court.3  Yet according to John R. Bolton, former

assistant secretary of state for international organization

affairs, the Nuremberg comparison does not withstand close

inspection: "Whenever the idea of a war crimes tribunal is

raised, Nuremberg is the model invariably cited.  But an

international criminal court [will be] nothing like Nurem-

berg."4  Consider how the Nuremberg trials actually worked.

They followed the unconditional military and political

surrender of the Axis powers.  Prospective defendants were

already in custody, and extensive documentary and physical

evidence was readily available.  Moreover, the Allies shared

a common vision of what the postoccupation government should

look like, and the defeated peoples endorsed the legitimacy

of the war crimes process.  Simply reciting that history

shows how different Germany and the Nuremberg tribunal were

from contemporary cases, like Bosnia and the Yugoslavia

tribunal.  Bolton points out that

the outside powers share no consensus about their

ultimate objectives or how [the Yugoslavia tribu-

nal's] war crimes trials fit into an overall po-

litical resolution [in Bosnia].  Indeed, precisely

because there was no clear military defeat, the

future status of the warring parties is not final-

ly decided. . . . Moreover, most key defendants

are not in custody and not likely to be brought

into custody in the foreseeable future.  Evidence

is unquestionably being concealed and destroyed in

widespread fashion.5

Alfred P. Rubin, professor of international law at the

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University,